In the company built the EA41 in collaboration with Pininfarina. Essentially a rebodied Beetle, it never went into production.

The first EA47 prototype appeared in ; at least 11 more EA47 variations were built over the next three years. By the mid- to lates questions about the future of the Beetle began to be asked from outside the company.

In an article with the title "Is the Volkswagen dated? Two years later a similar headline was used in an article in Der Spiegel weekly news.

In Porsche began a project numbered for a revised Beetle. A few years later this became the Volkswagen EA This project continued for a number of years and produced several prototypes, with early ones having bodywork designed by Porsche and later ones styled by Ghia.

The EA53 eventually led to the Type 3 model. In another design study, the EA97, was started. This exercise was larger than the Beetle, but kept tzzhe usual rear-mounted powertrain.

Some cars looks echo the later Type 3 cars, although the EA97 was smaller. The last EA97 was built in The EA was a Beetle-successor project that started in with a unibody study by Pininfarina.

As the project progressed the car grew in size and weight. Eventually it was rejected as a Beetle replacement, but served as the foundation of the subsequent model.

In another set of prototypes for possible Beetle replacements appeared in the form of the EA and EAa. This car, designated EA, was a small three-door hatchback with front-wheel drive using a front-mounted Volkswagen air-cooled engine.

The EA program was cancelled after the death of Nordhoff, but did find new life as the inspiration for the Brazilian Gol. Work to broaden the product line and find a replacement for the Beetle accelerated.

NSU was subsequently merged into the Auto Union group. One outcome of this acquisition was that the mid-sized front-wheel drive car that had been under development at NSU would reach the market, not as an NSU, but as the Volkswagen K In another development project started named EA This project originated with Porsche, where it began as an internal project as early as This unusual design used a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout with a water-cooled inline four cylinder engine laid over on its side and mounted longitudinally under the floor of the rear of the passenger compartment.

In , one year after the start of work at Volkswagen on the EA, another project named EA was commissioned.

This project would draw on engines and front-wheel drive technology from the Audi division of Auto Union. In Volkswagen built almost 1.

A government-backed economic stimulus package was able to produce a rebound in sales. One outcome of this was that the Deutsche Mark rose 40 percent against the US dollar in In the OPEC oil crisis hit, triggering a global recession.

The German government responded with emergency measures banning private car use on certain days of the week and comprehensive speed limits.

In the Center for Auto Safety published "Small--on safety: All of the foregoing combined to result in Volkswagen posting a DM,, loss in In the same year Volkswagen of America alone posted a DM,, loss.

Commenting on the situation at Volkswagen as he found it, Leiding said: Two weeks after assuming the directorship, Leiding stopped work on the Porsche-designed EA and ordered all but two of the 50 prototypes built to that point to be destroyed.

Gumpert visited the Turin Auto Show. After selecting their six favourite cars of the show, they discovered that four of the six were designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro and his Italdesign studio.

Giugiaro was invited to Wolfsburg in January to work on development project EA The client also provided Giugiaro with the basic dimensions and the power-train options.

Giugiaro produced a design that reflected his signature "origami" or "folded-paper" style, emphasizing sharp corners and flat planes.

Giugiaro would come to consider the Mk1 Golf the most important design of his career. At least one pre-production car was modified with a sliding side door.

During development, candidates for the name of the new car included "Blizzard" and "Caribe", but these lost out to the final choice of "Golf". The origin of the name is variously attributed to the game of golf , the Gulf Stream current German "Golfstrom" or the name of a horse.

Production started in March , and sales officially began in May On these earliest cars the lower horizontal bodyline running under the tail-lamps on the rear hatch dropped down in the location of the rear license plate.

This feature has been dubbed "Swallowtail" by some Golf enthusiasts. The surface between the raised sides on the bonnet on early cars also blended smoothly into the leading edge.

His design for the first generation Passat was released in , and the first generation Scirocco , a Giugiaro design prepared concurrently with the Golf, was released months ahead of the Golf.

The right-hand drive Golf went on sale in Britain in October For the sales year it was the 14th best selling car in Britain with more than 19, units sold.

Air conditioning became available as an option on the domestic market in August In December a minor styling revision deleted the Swallowtail line on the rear hatch, replacing it with a simple straight horizontal body-line.

The bonnet also received a transverse line connecting the two raised sides across the front edge of the panel. The Golf was introduced to Japan in , where it was imported by the Yanase dealership chain.

Its exterior dimensions and engine displacement were in compliance with Japanese Government dimension regulations , which helped sales.

A minor exterior revision in December replaced the narrow front and rear bumpers with moulded units that wrapped around the sides of the car. Another minor facelift in saw the adoption of wider rear lamp clusters and a new dashboard with a more modern-looking instrument display featuring LED warning lights.

US versions also received rectangular headlights. The Golf adopted an efficient " two-box " layout with a steep hatchback rather than a formal trunk.

The chassis was a steel unibody. Engines from two Audi engine families were offered. Both were water cooled inline four cylinder four-stroke engines.

Both also had two valves per cylinder operated by a single-overhead camshaft driven by a timing belt. The early engines used 2 barrel Zenith carburetors.

In this engine the valves were operated by rocker arms. In this engine the valves were operated by bucket tappets. The car was originally available with two transmission options; a four-speed manual and a three-speed automatic.

A five-speed manual became available in The front suspension was made up of MacPherson struts and helical coil springs with lower wishbones and an anti-roll bar.

The rear was semi-independent with dual trailing arms connected by a twist-beam rear suspension and coil springs over telescopic shock absorbers.

Steering was by rack-and-pinion. A prototype was built based on a Scirocco, rather than a Golf. The ad-hoc development team arranged to use the fuel-injected version of the EA engine that had been developed for the new Audi 80 GTE.

At this point a ninth person joined the original eight-member GTI team. Her contributions included the bright Tartan plaid upholstery, and the dimpled golf-ball-like gearshift knob.

Production was not expected to exceed units, which was the number needed to qualify for the Group One Production Touring Car class.

Anti-roll bars were also fitted front and rear. The engine in the early GTIs had a bore x stroke of Compression had also been increased to The GTI appeared on the British market in as a special order only in left-hand drive form.

Although cars of a generally similar concept, such as the Simca Ti and the Autobianchi A Abarth had appeared earlier, the Volkswagen Golf GTI is considered by many to be the archetypal " hot hatch ", a class of sporty small cars popular in the s and early s.

After the GTI was upgraded to 1. These were distinguished externally by a quad-lamp front grille, tinted glass, factory sliding sunroof and Pirelli P 6Jx14 alloy wheels.

The interior featured a leather-wrapped steering wheel, internal mirror adjusters and the MFA trip computer system.

Two additional special editions of the GTI were available in France. The other French special edition, which pre-dated the 1. GTIs were shipped from Germany to the Oettinger factory where they received, among other modifications, a valve double-overhead cam cylinder head.

The resulting engine developed A Golf powered by a normally aspirated diesel engine first appeared in September Equipping a compact car with a heavier, noisier and less powerful diesel engine was unusual in Germany at the time, with Peugeot among the few competitors offering a comparable model.

The diesel engine was derived from the existing EA Audi petrol engine. To withstand the higher stresses imposed by the diesel conversion, many engine components, including the cooling system, crankshaft, connecting rods, pistons and piston pins, cylinder head and timing belt, were reinforced or otherwise redesigned.

Swirl chambers were added to the cylinder head. In the place previously occupied by the ignition distributor was a vacuum pump for the brake booster.

The diesel injection pump was driven by the camshaft drive belt. The diesel engine was no larger than the 1.

Early diesel engines had a displacement of 1. The noise, vibration, and harshness NVH characteristics of the early diesels were still unsatisfactory.

A Golf-derived utility model with a pickup truck style rear bed was developed for the American market. Approximately , units were produced at this location until the factory was destroyed in during the Bosnian War.

In August a sedan version of the Golf called the Jetta was introduced. Essentially a Golf Mk1 with a trunk grafted on, this three-box body style was offered in two- and four-door versions and was targeted at more conservative buyers.

In North America the Jetta was a sales success, but sales numbers in Europe lagged behind expectations. In Karmann produced a prototype of a convertible Jetta based on the 2-door body.

This early prototype lacked the roll-over bar of the later version, and had a flat body line in the rear, where the soft top folded down below the sill level.

The production version of the convertible Golf was designated Type In Europe and Canada it was called the Golf Cabriolet , while in the United States it was sold as the Rabbit Convertible until , when it was also renamed "Cabriolet".

The Cabriolet was sold from to It had a reinforced body, a transverse roll-over bar, and a high level of trim. From stamping to final assembly the Mk1 Cabriolet was built entirely at the Karmann factory.

Volkswagen supplied engines, suspension, and interior trim for Karmann to install. The tops, of vinyl or cloth, were heavily insulated, with a heated glass rear window.

The top was raised and lowered manually until , when it became electrically operated. The body of the Cabriolet did not change through the entire production run except for a larger fuel tank.

It kept the pre style of rear lamp clusters. However, shortly after the new Golf reaches UK showrooms at the end of March , there will be a new engine added to the line-up: The new Evo motor below will come in two flavours initially: In an experience akin to our first time driving the original 1.

Any thought of achieving the claimed It makes a striking contrast to the Golf GTD. But whatever the reason, the DSG becomes a tool you can really enjoy on this new four-banger, instead of the fun-sponge it is in the diesel.

No way are you going to be able to resist revving the nuts off this thing occasionally. The new Discover Pro infotainment system, for example, is surely a must-have, as its 9.

Oh, and the Front Assist autonomous braking system now recognises pedestrians as well as solid objects like cars. Baby tech steps, you could say.